Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest

It just doesn't make much sense to me. The wording of the COI policy appears to 'strongly discourage' direct editing by COI in mainspace articles.

But being able to create an article, by doing so writing the entire article, seems to completely violate the spirit of the COI policy. I bring this up because I've recently come across 2 editors, 1 who already some time past created the entire article on their COI, and another attempting to do so, and it just seem to violate the spirit of the policy that they can get around it by creating the article instead of editing an exisitng one even though objectively creating an article seems to be a step above merely editing an exisitng one directly. Not to mention I find the idea of creating an article by someone with a COI in itself to be very dubious. If this topic or individual merited an article, ie they were so notable, isn't it a little coincidental it is a COI creating it? When I see an article was created entirely by someone with a COI and responsible for 95%+ of the article text that tends to make me suspicious of the article and I believe most people would prefer to get their information from a true 3rd party without any mediation by those with any COI.

If the idea is to not discourage editors from declaring their COI there could be other solutions. One example maybe to create a place where editors, including COI editors, can suggest articles to be created without actually writing the article themselves in the process and leaving it entirely up to someone else to see the merit in taking it up. This would more closesly follow the spirit of the COI policy on mainspace articles that asks them to 'suggest' edits on the talk page rather than writing them directly themselves. Since creating articles is something those with the ambition of adminship often seek out there would probably be a steady stream of editors willing to take up worthy topics to create an article on in order build out their wiki resume so to speak.Guile's Theme (talk) 21:39, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't an AfC require approval by other editors for it to enter mainspace? Geogene (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

It does, but it still results in articles entirely created and written by a COI editor which seems to violate the spirit of the COI policy more broadly where they not supposed to edit articles directly. Guile's Theme (talk) 22:32, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a problem with AfC reviewers, if they allow such a COI article to pass. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

I mean the guidelines also encourage the use of the {{Edit COI}} template which is basically a special form of edit request. Edit requests when used correctly are for asking for changes to be made to an article which you can't make yourself for normally some technical reason, but which don't require discussion or modification. While there are some changes for the COI one, in particular to allow for discussion and other stuff, it's still designed so an editor reviewing the request can just make the edit without needing to modify it, and can even authorise the COI editor to make the edit themselves. So I don't think there's any inconsistency. It's not that changes made or text written by editors with a COI cannot appear in main space. It's simply that it needs to be reviewed by a non COI editor before this happens. These editors should given proper scrutiny to these edits given the COI but if after that scrutiny is applied they still feel it's okay to be in main space then there's not a problem. Now if editors are passing stuff they shouldn't into main space, that's a problem with these editors not applying proper scrutiny but the problem needs to be whatever was written isn't appropriate for main space not simply that it was written by someone with a COI. BTW, we already have places for suggested articles. These don't work when they're mostly used by editors without a COI. It seems very unlikely they'll work when used by editors with a COI. Nil Einne (talk) 01:13, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Please review my background regarding recent COI concerns. Please advise on how to address.

I am an unpaid volunteer for both the Travis County Historical Commission (TCHC) and the Texas Historical Commission's archeology/history stewards program (TASN). I have no financial gain, direct or indirect, from any of my edits.

My edits have nothing to do with the TCHC, THC, or TASN, their members, or their internal business. My Wikipedia account, dating to 2005, is entirely my own personal account; it is not a shared account.

Per WP:EXPERT, Wikipedia explicitly welcomes subject-matter experts. My background gives me specialized knowledge in Austin, Travis County, and Texas history, but it does not give me a financial or personal stake in historical articles. I am using my expertise strictly to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles for readers.

I am not affiliated with the Travis County Archives. While I occasionally use their records (such as deed records or published historical marker applications) as references, these are consulted strictly as verifiable source materials available to any researcher.

While I am a local historian who engages with the community to promote historical accuracy, my Wikipedia edits are never used to publish original research (WP:NOR) or advocate for any city, county, state or non-profit entity. Every edit I make is strictly bound to what can be verified in existing, independent, published literature.

My contributions to correcting factual errors are done by introducing high-quality, peer-reviewed, scholarly, verifiable secondary historical sources per WP:V

User notification: {{ping|Magnolia677}}

~~~~ rdenney (talk) 19:43, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

My issue is edits like this, where you use Wikipedia to "set the record straight" using links to your organization to support your edits. As suggested on your talk page, this may have been better addressed at WP:COI/N. --Magnolia677 (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Hi, you are asking questions on my own talk page. I'll be glad to answer your questions but not sure if we are doing that there, or here? I started the COI/N at your suggestion. rdenney (talk) 20:32, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

I've been following the COI guideline for a long time, and I'll try to give my take on the questions and issues raised here. Let me start with some simple factual things. This is WT:COI, not WP:COIN, which are two different things. Since there are already discussions in a couple of places, maybe a COIN thread isn't needed for now, especially since it looks to me like everyone is trying to cooperate.

Based on Rdenney's work being unpaid volunteer work, I don't think there is any problem in terms of WP:PAID, either in letter or spirit, so I don't think that needs further discussion. The Texas Historical Commission has paid employees, but in this case, this is unpaid work.

The COI question boils down to whether or not the unpaid volunteer work rises to the level of a COI. For the most part, I don't think that it does. Making use of publicly available library resources to correct factual errors in Wikipedia content is good editing, and having a hobby-like interest in the subject matter does not make for a COI. I see that your user page clearly discloses your volunteer activities, so there is no problem with transparency. I see that there is some discussion on the user talk page about external links. Those are things like what one can see at Austin, Texas#External links (where I'm not currently seeing any problem, either). It's best to avoid adding WP:SPAMmy links, so if that has happened in the past, it would be better not to do so (see also WP:ELNO, in case that has any relevance).

When I look at edits like , I can see two issues that might have also been noticed by Magnolia677. First, the new text begins with "A misconception one may see concerning Waterloo...". That isn't exactly a COI problem, but I can understand how it might raise red flags for other editors. We don't normally say that kind of stuff in "Wikipedia's voice". It would be more encyclopedic to simply say the corrected facts, cited to reliable sources, and leave it at that. If the misconception has been a big deal, noted by independent sources, then one could, lower in the paragraph, say something like "[Source] has noted that there has previously been a misconception about...", followed by an inline citation to that source. The other issue is the edit summary, which focuses on how TCHC has tried to address the misconception, when all that was really needed was something about adding a section on the founding. I see that there had been a section heading about historical misconceptions, that was reverted, and I agree with reverting that, unless there is something very specific to Austin as being more subject to misconceptions than most cities, which I doubt.

In my opinion, those things can give the appearance of COI editing, and it would be a good idea to adjust some of your writing style to avoid that appearance, but I don't actually think that there is a COI problem, per se, here. Communication style and misunderstandings aside, using good sources to correct content errors is welcome here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:05, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

re: "... it would be a good idea to adjust some of your writing style to avoid that appearance [COI], but I don't actually think that there is a COI problem, per se, here. Communication style and misunderstandings aside, using good sources to correct content errors is welcome ..."

Thank you and {{ping|Magnolia677} for your feedback and will take all this to heart. This was my first COI experience so my apologies for getting this posted in the wrong section (should have been COIN). If everyone is OK with this, is there any form I need to fill out to prevent this being an issue in the future? rdenney (talk) 13:03, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

{{ping|Magnolia677}} rdenney (talk) 13:41, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

Happy to help. I think that what you already have on your user page takes care of any disclosure you have to do. There is no form as such, but if in the future you feel like you might be getting close to a COI, you can put Template:Connected contributor at the top of the article talk page, for the article you have edited. Or, to be on the safe side, instead of editing an article directly, you can suggest an edit on the article talk page by using Template:Edit COI. By the way, you should not be putting <nowiki></nowiki> around the pings, because that makes the ping template inactive. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:20, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

I noticed that the article mentions the Los Bajos Fault and Warm Springs Fault, but there are currently no Wikipedia articles about them.

I am a new editor. What are your suggestions for a beginner like me? Would it be useful to create short stub articles for these faults in the future?

-- FactSeeker26 FactSeeker26 (talk) 12:08, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. But I think you posted these questions in the wrong place, unless you have a conflict of interest in writing about these subjects. I'd suggest that you ask this, instead, at WP:TEAHOUSE. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:04, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm a member of WP Engineering project, so I got a watchlist ping when a COI editor asked for help with a COI edit request at Talk:SolidWorks. The editor's material was decent, and they seem to be acting in good faith, and familiar with WP policies. I did two separate edits for them. A statistic says COI backlog of requests is over 500 requests? I understand that COI can causes some significant bias/POV problems in WP, but if there is a shortage of editors to perform the edit requests it seems sensible to tell COI editors that they can make an edit provided:

1. A COI request was posted
2. A substantial period of time has gone by without action on the request
3. The COI editor is familiar with WP policies & guidelines
4. The COI editor gives personal assurance that the edit is consistent with WP policies & guidelines

Bottom line: a good-faith COI editor who is familiar with WP guidelines should not be "strongly discouraged" from making any edit. Rather, they should be strongly discourage only from making edits that biased, ill-informed, hasty, or inconsistent with WP guidelines. Noleander (talk) 18:13, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

In terms of implementing that, I would worry about leaving the judgment call about those things up to each COI editor. Some of them, like the one in your example, can probably be trusted to do that responsibly, but there are plenty of them who come along and think that their edit would be just fine, but are very much wrong about it. Lots of COI editors are quite certain that they are not biased. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, the lead up to your hypothetical edit shows that 'strongly discouraged' is working, they tried to present it on the talk page, and openly declared thier coi. If they eventually go ahead and edit, and can defend the edits under content policy then that's the way it will be, until someone else reviews the edit and sees they were "wrong" under content policy and then revisions or a discussion can start. Either way, in the meantime the reader can know what text is written by someone with a coi. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:33, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

I hear what you (and Tryptofish) are saying. But it seems like this COI page is not being clear or honest. Anyone reading the COI page may come away with the conclusion that COI editors cannot edit articles. It would be more honest to say:

COI editors are strongly discouraged from editing, but are permitted to edit an article under the following restrictions: [blah, blah, blah]. Even though editing is permitted, COI editors are encouraged to instead use the Edit Request process as follows: [blah, blah, blah]. COI editors who do not follow these guidelines may be banned/blocked from editing.

I understand that WP has had thousands of painful COI incidents in the past, but that is not an excuse to write a guideline with fuzzy wording. IMHO. Noleander (talk) 23:45, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

I just re-read the page in the context of what you said here, and I'm still having trouble seeing my way to making such a change. "Strongly discouraged" is not the same thing as "forbidden" or "prohibited". And in general, I do think we should want to strongly discourage it. Looking at the "other categories of COI" section, I see several places where it already says explicitly that some COI situations are permissible to edit directly (such as the second paragraph of WP:COISELF, among other examples). If you could flesh out the proposed [blah...] part of that with specific examples, we could consider what to add. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:30, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Could be helpful for this page to mention WP:LLM somewhere prominent, and for the section at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Paid editors on talk pages to mention WP:AITALK. People may come in, read this policy, and go off to make edit requests in good faith without realizing that we really don't want LLM-generated edit requests or talk page messages. Dreamyshade (talk) 07:44, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I added this: . Not sure if there is anything else. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! I'd like to be more direct and say "All editors, including paid editors, should not use LLMs or AI to generate talk page messages (WP:AITALK).", so that people don't need to click to find out the rule. Do you think that would be overstating AITALK? Maybe I should ask over on WP:VPP. Dreamyshade (talk) 22:35, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I have no objection to anyone modifying what I wrote, but I think the focus should be on paid/COI editors, not on "all editors". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

We need to update {{Uw-paid1}}; please see the discussion at Template talk:Uw-paid1#Improper advice. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:39, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

To expand: with the introduction of temporary accounts, the text at {{Uw-paid1}} and {{Uw-paid2}} should be adjusted so for temporary accounts, it instructs the user to create an account. Andy has made a tentative change to {{Uw-paid1}}. More feedback is welcome. isaacl (talk) 17:29, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Recently, I noticed that, unlike many other topics, we don't really have an icon to represent COI. For example, look at these templates and heir icons:
Generic information icon:

The user below has a request that an edit be made to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 630 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

Potential Conflict of Interest This IP address, Conflict of interest, is registered to a business or corporation. Users at this address may have a conflict of interest with editing Wikipedia articles related to their organization. Editors should be especially attentive to possible neutral point of view issues with this user's contributions.

Generic warning icon:

Generic blue warning icon:

This article references a source that one of the article's contributors may have written or published. Citing oneself is allowed on Wikipedia, but may represent a conflict of interest. Contributors should be careful not to place undue weight on their own work, and are discouraged from excessive self-citation. Guidelines relevant to this situation include Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:SELFPUBLISHED. [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] · [[Special:Contribs/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) — {{{2}}}

All Wikipedia contributors may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this . Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest and neutral point of view.

Error: You are attempting to insert {{Connected contributor/all}} outside of the talk pages of articles or drafts.

NPOV icon:

Person icon:

The following Wikipedia contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this page. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] · [[Special:Contribs/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

A road sign:

This user has publicly declared that they have a conflict of interest regarding the Wikipedia article Error: No article specified.

The only consistent icon we have for COI can only be used for *paid* COI, since it represents a coin:

The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution; see WP:PAID. For advice about reviewing paid contributions, see WP:COIRESPONSE. [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] · [[Special:Contribs/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) has been paid by unknown.

We need to decide on a standard icon for COI notices, we can't have six icons to represent the same thing...

The generic warning icons and the info icons all cause banner blindness and a warning is not necessary; that's used for urgent or extremely important matters, which is clearly not the case for COI. The neutrality icon isn't really right, because the presence of a COI editor doesn't necessarily mean that the article is not neutral, and the coin icon obviously represents paid editing, which isn't necessarily the case. And the road sign is just too unclear.

My personal favourite is the user icon because it clearly represents an individual, which is the main problem: a single individual is almost always the reason these templates are added. It doesn't cause banner blindness and isn't too abstract or complex. If anyone has a better icon in mind I'd love to hear it!

• 
  User icon

FaviFake (talk) 18:59, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The round and triangular icons are not COI icons, they are severity or 'type' icons per the message box configuration. For example, for talk pages (tmbox), it is defined here, in page Module:Message box/configuration. Mathglot (talk) 23:49, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Personally, I disagree with the premise. I don't think it's necessary to introduce more iconography. Having icons for message types such as informational, warning, and so forth is a common design feature in user interfaces. I think trying to assign icons to each topic area related to a message doesn't scale well. I appreciate there is some of that already, but it's not clear to me that introducing more will be helpful. isaacl (talk) 23:56, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Agree. Primefac (talk) 09:07, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Third that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:00, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

lease consider adding the following neutral, independently sourced text to the History section, following the paragraph about the festival’s 2020–2023 interruption:

In March 2024, the ''Edmonton Journal'' reported a dispute between Edmonton’s International BeerFest and the organizers of the Edmonton Craft Beer Festival concerning alleged brand confusion. Festival founder Sean Farmer said that similarities in branding had confused sponsors and visitors from outside Edmonton, while the other organizer maintained that both festivals could coexist.<ref>{{cite news |last=Murray |first=Tom |title=Local beer festivals froth while a new docuseries digs into Edmonton's craft breweries |url=https://edmontonjournal.com/life/food/local-beer-festivals-froth-while-a-new-docuseries-digs-into-edmontons-craft-breweries |work=Edmonton Journal |date=6 March 2024 |access-date=15 August 2026 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

This article provides substantial independent coverage of the festival and presents comments from both organizations. I am connected with the subject, so I am requesting independent review rather than editing the article directly. Thank you. ~~~~

~2026-44649-17 (talk) 07:06, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

This talk page isn't where we discuss individual edit requests, so you might want to cross-post this at the article talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 15 August 2026 (UTC)